


Metaphors of Addiction

by InkTailor



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ficlet, Fluff, I apologize in advance, M/M, this is utter schmaltzy bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 15:47:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2698475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkTailor/pseuds/InkTailor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone assumed Sherlock Holmes was a hard man to love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Metaphors of Addiction

                 Everyone assumed Sherlock Holmes was a hard man to love.

            John knew why people thought what they did. It wasn’t easy to have a conversation with Sherlock and not come out of it feeling frustrated, offended, or downright disturbed. Sherlock didn’t exactly inspire affection in the world, and in return the world assumed he wasn’t capable of bringing it about in anyone. Psychopath, freak, machine; they were all labels that had been thrown at the detective with the intent to hurt, and on some levels they had.

            So it was easy to understand why people believed John had to be a saint, putting up with the detective the way he did. Pitied glances were sent he doctor’s way, even more so when the pair had gone from merely being friends to something _more_. It must be a cold bed they shared, friends and strangers alike, reasoned. In the beginning of their relationship John himself had wondered, worried, that he had gotten himself in over his head.

                For once in his life, John had never been so happy to be proved wrong.

            Not that Sherlock suddenly changed, became a tactful and kind man after John had pulled him close and kissed him until they were both breathless and then hadn’t let go. He was still Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective and a spectacular pain in the arse. An influx in sex didn’t give him any instantaneous social grace, nor did it soften his spite when brought into contact with something he deemed unnecessarily idiotic.

There was, however, a new side to the detective that was almost shocking in the depth of its humanity. Shy and insecure were not words that were normally associated with Sherlock, but there were still mornings when he would duck his head down away from John, and avoid his eyes. Admittedly, it took John a while to figure out what was going on in his lover’s impossible brain, but when he did, all he could say was, “Oh Sherlock,” and pull him in close. It hadn’t occurred to John that arrogant, ruthless Sherlock could feel undeserving, until it _did_ , and, well.They had spent the rest of that day holed up in Baker Street, reaffirming with hands and mouths what they had long felt about each other.

            _Sentiment_ was another word that John had originally suspected wouldn’t play a large role in his relationship with Sherlock. It took months for Sherlock to confess, into the confines of John’s ear, those three small words that appeared to be little but meant the world. After that first time, John hadn’t thought he would hear those words often, if ever again. Instead, Sherlock told John he loved him the way he spit out deductions: without hesitation and seemingly at random.

“I love you,” Sherlock snarled while John was in the middle of fucking him, both of his large hands wrapped around the headboard. John had thrust harder, until Sherlock was pushing back against him and couldn’t speak anymore.

            “I love you!” was snapped at him like a curse, Sherlock glaring at him from under the fringe of his curls. There was half of a severed bird wing in the trash, with pins still clustered between the feathers. John had thrown it away after the so-called “experiment” had been decomposing on their kitchen table for a week. Sherlock glared and huffed for the rest of the day if John came within five feet of him, but he still curled up around John that night.

            “I love you…” pressed into the skin of John’s neck, the words were so quiet they almost got lost between the sounds of their breathing. It was dark, and they were tangled together beneath the sheets of their bed. Sherlock was draped over John, his face tucked up against his shoulder. There was something deeply tender enveloping them that felt almost painfully intimate, and John couldn’t help tightening his arms around the man sprawled vulnerably across his chest.

            John didn’t know if Sherlock said it to remind himself or John, but every time he heard those words leave his lovers’ mouth John couldn’t stop the small thrill in the pit of his stomach. Other times, when Sherlock said things like, “I don’t know what I would be without you,” or “You have me until my dying breath,” John would be sharply reminded just how far gone he was on his detective.

            It wasn’t only with his voice that Sherlock revered his lover. When John woke up in the middle of the night, shaking violently with the after-effects of his nightmares, Sherlock would simply hold him until the memories had faded enough that they could both fall back asleep. Sherlock would twine their fingers together, lay his head in John’s lap, run his thumbs along John’s cheekbones, and kiss whatever part of the doctor’s body was readily available. John was Sherlock’s new brand of nicotine, his drug of choice, and he attached himself whenever he could.

            Sherlock was almost ferocious in his loving, and at times John found himself considering precisely how healthy their relationship was. Not very, probably. It couldn’t have been, when Sherlock watched him with such intensity, as if John was constantly about to slip from his grasp. In the end, John told himself that it was Sherlock after all, and Sherlock had never done anything in moderation.

            After the first few years, John thought that the passion would die off, the magnitude of Sherlock’s focus drifting slowly to encompass more of their lives. It didn’t. Instead, it seemed only to grow. Sherlock still tugged him close just to murmur hoarsely, “You are everything, _everything_ John, I need you to know that, I need you to understand-”. Every kiss was a desperate slide of lips, like they were suffocating each time they parted. Even when they tumbled into bed, moving against each other slow and sweet, they would cling to one another with vigorous ardor.

            It was different from every other relationship John had ever been in. In the past, most of his girlfriends hadn’t lasted more than a few weeks or months. Mary had been like stepping into an old coat, warm and familiar and comforting, up until the very end at least. She had been so easy to love, and they had had something good, even if it hadn’t ever been real.

            But Sherlock… he and Sherlock were like a bomb going off.  It was dramatic and at times unreal, but together they were heat and friction and force, which always seemed to be as close to ripping them apart as it did melding them together. It was a precarious balance that never wanted to tip too far to either side. Not even their arguments, which had always been brutal, could tilt the scale. At the height of every fight, Sherlock, always the more volcanic of the two, would cut short whomever was yelling by yanking them close. He would grip John’s face, pushing their foreheads together and clamping down his teeth until their fury calmed into something more manageable. Then, and only then, would they lean against each other and continue their quarreling, much more quietly.

            John was, of course, not about to be outdone by his supposed sociopath of a lover. He’d had the reputation of being a romantic since the first time he’d dated a girl, and it had no plans about going anywhere. He would pick up Sherlock’s hand when they were sitting next to each other, kissing each fingertip before placing it gently back on the detective’s leg. John would wait until Sherlock started to spiral into a black mood before swooping in to card a hand through his curls and remind the lanky man exactly how important he was to one ex-army doctor. He tried to put it into every touch, the frankly absurd amount of devotion and adoration he felt for this man.

            John had claimed not to be interested in marriage, after Mary. He told Sherlock they didn’t need a piece of paper to represent their ongoing commitment. But when Sherlock told him softly that he wouldn’t mind, them being legally bound, John went out and bought two silver rings that very day. John knew he couldn’t say no to Sherlock, and if that meant that he would wear a wedding band and promise to be faithful, he was more than willing to indulge.

            After vows were exchanged, there was still hesitation in the general public to accept Sherlock as able to love and be loved. Caring could be comprehended, though even the idea of Sherlock having friends seemed a stretch for some people. Sherlock had never appeared to give a damn, but it rankled John that his _husband_ , his ridiculously sentimental husband, who would wake John up in the middle of the night just to kiss him one last time before going to sleep, could be viewed as apathetic or undesirable.  

            John told Sherlock so once, and the detective just shrugged, unconcerned before wandering off, calling over his shoulder for John not to open the fridge due to the sheep brain currently residing inside. Conversation closed, John had thought, resigned. But later, John pulled out his phone to find a text that read: _I need you more than cases or the violin or not being bored. I don’t care what ‘everyone’ says. I just need you to know. SH_

            Sherlock Holmes might not always be an easy man to love, but John knew it would be impossible not to.  

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Comments are wonderful and kudos are gold.


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